Linda Johnson Rice, whose family founded the publisher of African-American-oriented magazines Ebony and Jet, is scouring for new advertising and licensing revenue as the industry continues to lose income to Web competitors.

Ms. Rice says she's adapting Johnson's brands to digital media, partly by partnering with other companies. For instance, the Chicago-based company entered a revenue-sharing agreement with Google Inc. in 2008 that made old copies of the magazines available online.

"Those partnerships have done very well for us," Ms. Rice says. "We've got to move more into a digital arena at a relatively fast pace here."

At the end of last year, circulation of the weekly Jet was down 10%, to 795,035 subscriptions, from a year earlier, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The monthly Ebony was down 12% to 1.17 million.

First-quarter ad revenue for the magazines dropped more than average, falling 31% to $3.63 million for Jet and 28% to $6.85 million for Ebony, according to the Magazine Publishers of America.

The specialty magazines "are all really getting clobbered," says Edward Atorino, a Benchmark Co. LLC analyst in New York who covers the publishing industry.

Ms. Rice has been making more visits to top advertisers and trying to improve the quality of the magazines' content, she says.

She's also considering other options for shoring up the company's finances. She declines to comment on February reports that NBA great Earvin "Magic" Johnson discussed buying the company.

"We're looking at a range of options that can support our core businesses," Ms. Rice says.